The American Idol theme weeks are back this season and we’re starting off with Motown for the Top 16’s Detroit performance setting. Exec producer Per Blankens explains the undesirable format change for American Idol 2015.
The theme weeks have been a bad idea for a long time so it was exciting last year when they were more or less eliminated in favor of a wider range of contestant freedom for song picks. Well get over it because we’re back to oldie moldies “hits” from yester-century.
Speaking with Zap2It, Blankens expanded on why they wanted the square-peg-round-hole back on American Idol:
Last year when we met here at the TCAs, we talked about the music themes and it was a lot of critique about the kids having to sing Burt Bacharach and what have you, old songs that they couldn’t relate to.
So what we did last year was actually give more power to the kids: “What songs do you want to sing?” And sometimes the songs were great and sometimes the songs weren’t that great because the audience hadn’t heard them as much as the other songs.
Pers promises this will be a “middle of the road” approach for Season 14 where they’ll have themes, but they’ll “still be a little more current.” You know, like Motown. Oh well.
What do you think? Is the return of theme weeks on American Idol 2015 a good thing or a bad idea? Share your thoughts!
I love themes!!!!!!!!!!!!
Me too! I’d like a Bon Jovi week [very broad songbook including country], maybe a songs from films week [hugely diverse], and a one hit wonder week.
Jax should sing “I’ll Be There” by M. Jackson or maybe 1-2-3.
Idol wants so badly to attract younger fans but keeps sabotaging that objective with their dated themes and mentors.
I love the themes as well. You do not want to give that up, as that is what separates American Idol from all the other copy cat shows.But, they are finally letting more music being played as well. In fact, has anyone else noticed all the changes AI did this season?